Are the institutional whales and big players on Bitfinex going crazy? Long positions have hit a 28-month high since 2023, reaching 80,000 BTC. The lending rate on Bitfinex has skyrocketed to 13%, while other exchanges are only at 2.5%. This means there’s a massive amount of borrowing to go long on Bitfinex. Due to its non-counterparty mechanism, low leverage, and close ties with Tether, Bitfinex mainly attracts institutional players and whales rather than retail traders, making it a strong indicator of major market trends. As shown in the chart below, historical data suggests that the long/short positions on Bitfinex have generally led BTC price movements by about six months in recent years, forming a diamond-shaped structure. During the accumulation of long positions, BTC tends to trade sideways or decline, and then about six months later, BTC starts to rise while the long positions are unwound. This wave of long accumulation started last August, and BTC has coincidentally been trading sideways and declining since then. Now it’s been six months, so the next chapter of this story... It’s too good to imagine, I don’t dare to think further.